PROJECT OVERVIEW
Creating a personalized and immersive web shopping experience
Gym & Tone-It is a luxury athletic wear brand that is dedicated to providing high-quality clothing and exceptional customer experience to their shoppers. With a focus on quality, sustainability, and customer satisfaction, they are committed to delivering a superior shopping experience to their customers.
THE PROBLEM
However, the brand is struggling to increase its conversion rate and retain customers as 70% of shoppers who place an item in the cart do not end up making the purchase.
As the UX/UI Designer, my task was to find a solution to the problem of online shoppers struggling to find the right product. After extensive research, I developed a personalized and immersive shopping experience that helps shoppers make well-informed purchasing decisions.
Understanding Customers
Gathering data using secondary research
Rationale
The decision to utilize secondary research to gain insights on why many users abandon their cart was driven by its cost-effectiveness and time efficiency.
It allowed me to gather a lot of information from various sources quickly and effectively without the need for primary data collection, which could be time consuming.
Research Objectives and Findings
Research Synthesis
After gathering research data, I completed a comprehensive analysis of the strategies employed by Gym & Tone-It, as well as those implemented by other companies within the same industry to reduce cart abandonment rates.
Upon careful analysis, optimizing the brand’s online shopping experience remains the only viable solution as other approaches have already been implemented.
The Gym & Tone-It Customer
User Persona
Before diving into creating the solution, I realized it is crucial to gain a deeper understanding of the goals, motivations, pain points, and expectations of the brand’s target consume
Monica, the ideal customer for Gym & Tone-it. She's a busy millennial who values efficiency, effectiveness, and fun.
Problem & Solutions
To re-focus and reframe uncovered insights into opportunity areas, I created the following How Might We statements to spark innovations.
Monica, the ideal customer for Gym & Tone-it. She's a busy millennial who values efficiency, effectiveness, and fun.
These questions helped me determine what needed to be done and led me to identify the solution: the virtual fitting feature.
Competitive Analysis
After conducting a competitive analysis on other popular brands within the athletic wear industry, I have found that virtual fitting technology has not been implemented for any of these brands to enhance the customer experience. This presents a unique opportunity for Gym & Tone-It to differentiate itself from competitors.
Competitive analysis of how other brands in the athletic wear industry have solved the same problem.
Customer Journey Map
To gain a better understanding of how the Gym & Tone-It customer would interact with the virtual fitting feature while shopping, I created a customer journey map to identify opportunities to improve the user experience.
Customer journey map as a visualization of how customers would interact with the product. Click to view
Designing the Solution
User Flows
To visualize how the virtual fitting feature would be integrated into the overall shopping experience, I created a user flow to ensure a seamless and intuitive experience.
User flow of the virtual fitting feature that will allow users to try on clothes as they browse.
Low-Fidelity Designs
Sketches
I created the following sketches to explore ideas and concepts while defining the layout, content, and functionality of the user interface for the virtual fitting features.
User flow of the virtual fitting feature that will allow users to try on clothes as they browse.
Wireframes
After deciding on the most optimal layout, I created the wireframes and conducted guerrilla usability testing to receive feedback from users early in the design process to identify potential problems before moving to high fidelity prototype.
User flow of the virtual fitting feature that will allow users to try on clothes as they browse.
Iterations
Based on the findings from the usability testing conducted with 5 participants, I was able to uncover the following issues that required iteration:
User flow of the virtual fitting feature that will allow users to try on clothes as they browse.
High Fidelity Design
Based on the feedback gathered from guerrilla usability testing, I was able to make iterations to improve the functionality of the product. The resulting high-fidelity product was a more user-friendly and intuitive design that met more needs of its intended audience.
Testing the Final design
To gain more comprehensive and accurate evaluation of the design, I conducted another round of usability testing with the final design to uncover any new potential issues. It also allowed me to validate the effectiveness of my previous iterations.
Key Findings
Iterations
Final Product
Final Thoughts
Prioritization and time management: I learned that prioritization is time management are crucial when working on a project with a limited time frame. Creating a project plan prior to beginning the project was very helpful in helping me stay focused and on track and ensured that I was able to complete the project within the given 90-hour time frame.
Details matter: The layout of content is a crucial factor that greatly impacts how users perceive and comprehend information. A well-designed content layout can effectively guide users through the content, allowing them to easily find the information they need and make sense of it.
Aesthetic matters: Visually pleasing design can mask usability problems from being discovered during usability testing. When asked about their overall experience with the product, users who encountered some usability issues during the usability test still believe the experience to be very positive.
